


Strive Against Hope

by lirin



Category: Oxford Time Travel Universe - Connie Willis
Genre: Gen, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:42:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28309923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lirin/pseuds/lirin
Summary: "They're giving us until the end of the month," Badri said. "Then they're closing the lab."
Comments: 7
Kudos: 24
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Strive Against Hope

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shotboxer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shotboxer/gifts).



"They're giving us until the end of the month," Badri said.

Kivrin closed her book. T. J. jabbed at his handheld. Linna ran a hand through her hair. Nobody spoke.

And so, finally, Colin did, because he couldn't wait any longer. "And then what?"

"Then they're closing the lab," Badri said. "They're not going to let us try anymore. They're declaring the past permanently closed to us."

"They're giving up," Colin said.

Badri leaned his chair back until it leaned against the deactivated console. "Yeah."

"So now what?" Linna asked. "I've spent my entire career—well, such as it is—as a net technician. So we’re fired now, just like that?"

"Like when carriage manufacturers went out of work when the automobile was invented," Badri said. "Maybe they'll pay for vocational retraining for us."

"Though considering budget is more than half of the reason they're doing this, they may not," Kivrin said sharply.

"Space is the other half," Badri said. "And that's what I'm afraid of—they're not just going to stop paying; they're going to completely shut down the lab and take it apart. We won't even be able to sneak in after hours and keep trying."

"Damn," Colin said, and the others nodded.

"So if time travel is closed to us, what are we going to do?" Linna asked. "I've only been working as a tech for a few years; I can switch jobs without too much work. Maybe I should go into phone networking. There's some new tech coming on the market, putting together a network that will work like cell phones used to but without the cancer. I think it's likely to take off."

"My job's still secure," T. J. said. "If not more so, now that everybody and their brother-in-law wants to know what's wrong with the net. Though there's a lot more yelling involved than back when I was just coding sims of the Napoleonic wars."

"Sorry about that," Colin said.

"That's all right," T. J. said. "You're upset, I get that. I am too. This is an awful situation, and it's not getting better any time soon. I wasn't thinking of you lot as much as of my meeting day before yesterday. Some of the school heads seemed to be under the impression that if they yelled loud enough, I would magically produce a fully-coded simulation that showed exactly why the net isn't opening currently, and exactly what they need to do to get it open." He ran a hand over his face and rubbed his eyes. "I wish I could, I really do. But that's the hell of it; I have absolutely no idea why the net won't open."

"What about you, Kivrin?" Linna asked. "Are you going to keep working as a historian?"

"I don't see what else I would do," Kivrin said. "And I've already done plenty of field research. I didn't really have plans to go back in time any more than I've already done. So nothing's really changing for me. And besides, historians have been studying the past for centuries before the invention of time travel. They can keep studying it for centuries after time travel goes away."

"I still want to become a historian," Colin blurted.

"Colin, you do realize that without time travel, the study of history is going to be all dry old books and poorly-digitized handwritten records and dense analyses," Kivrin said gently. "You won't have the payoff of getting to see the Crusades."

"I don't care," Colin said. "Mr. Dunworthy is—well, was—no, is; he's not dead yet, not until we have undeniable proof that he is. Anyway, he's a historian, and so is Polly and Merope and Michael and you and I'm not going to let that all die out just because things are changing. I told Mr. Dunworthy I was going to be a historian just like him, and now that he's not here I don't want to change that and make it so I lied to him. He made arrangements for me to read history here at Balliol, and I'm going to do that just like he planned for me, and then when I graduate...well, whatever being a historian looks like by then, that's what I'm going to do." He sighed. "I wish I could tell him. I never would have cared much about history if it wasn't for him."

"And I wouldn't be here to care about history if it wasn't for both him and you," Kivrin said. "I think he already knew everything you'd want to tell him. He'd be happy for you."

"I hope so," Colin said. "So Badri, you said we have a month?"

"A bit less. Just until the thirty-first."

"So we can keep trying until then."

"We've already tried everything," Linna said.

"Have we?" T. J. asked. "Think like a program tester. Do our test cases cover all the possible variables?"

"What, like the different phases of the moon and times of day?" Badri asked. "Because I don't think we've yet tried to get the net to open at one in the morning during a lunar eclipse."

"Kind of, but not exactly," T. J. said. "I don't think either of those things matter, but maybe there's things that do matter that we haven't varied sufficiently."

"And if we don't find anything, then we'll try the times of day thing," Colin said. "It's better than doing nothing."

"Says the person who isn't going to be getting up at all hours of the night to try the different options," Badri said, but he didn't look angry.

"Do we have a printout of all the drops we've tried?" T. J. asked.

"Right here," Linna said. She stepped over to one of the shelves that lined the lab, and retrieved a sheaf of papers. "There's a lot of them."

"I know," T. J. said. "I'll have to write a program to analyze them all—unless my first hypothesis turns out to be accurate." He took the papers and started paging through them, pen in hand.

"What's your hypothesis?" Kivrin asked.

"Just a minute."

It took T. J. closer to ten minutes to sift through the entire sheaf. Kivrin read another few pages of her book, on shepherding in the fourteenth century. Colin read bits and pieces of it over her shoulder, even though he'd never touched a sheep in his life and didn't particularly plan to. Badri filled in a few lines on a newspaper crossword while Linna offered suggestions and tapped her foot. Nobody talked about what T. J. was doing. If they did, then they would have to start feeling hopeful again, and if they felt hopeful, then their hopes could be dashed as they had been a dozen times before.

Finally, T. J. set down the papers and looked up. "We've tried to open drops everywhere in the world," he said, and everyone nodded. "That's one variable. We've also tried to open drops at many different times. That's another variable." They all nodded again. "But when you look at the interaction of the two variables, we haven't covered every option. All of the drops we've tried outside of Great Britain are during 1940. What if it's just Great Britain _and_ 1940—or maybe even more than just 1940, but still, not the entirety of history—that are closed to us?"

"It's worth a try," Badri said.

"If we can get the net to open just one single time, then they can't say that it's permanently closed," Colin said. "They'll have to give us more time."

Kivrin jumped up. "Let's try right now," she said.

"What do you think we should try, T. J.?" Badri asked. "Something completely different. Last year in...in somewhere none of us have ever thought about before. Some small island in the Caribbean?"

"None of us can travel to last year since we were all already here," Kivrin said.

"It will be all right for a test run," T. J. said. "We don't need to go through, just see if it will open. And the Caribbean sounds as good as anywhere. Open an atlas, close your eyes and point."

Linna pulled an atlas from one of the shelves. "Who wants to do the honors?" she asked, paging through it. Finding the Caribbean, she set it on the table they had all been sitting around. "Kivrin?"

Kivrin closed her eyes and stabbed at the atlas. "Antigua," she read.

"Never heard of it," Colin said. "Perfect."

"Linna, coordinates?" Badri asked from the console. Lights flickered slowly as his hands flew over buttons and levers.

Linna poked at her handheld. "17.0747 north, 61.8175 west," she said. She walked over to look over Badri's shoulder. "Do you think it's going to work?"

"I hope so," Badri said. "Everyone step away from the net, just in case."

Still sitting at the table, Colin seized Kivrin's hand. He hoped so too, more than anything. But their hopes had risen before, and the only thing that had come of it was more pain.

"Even if this doesn't work, we won't give up hope yet," Kivrin told him softly. "Not until the thirty-first, and not even then. We can keep trying somehow. They can't stop us. You and Mr. Dunworthy never gave up trying to reopen the net to find me, and now you and I are going to do the same for Mr. Dunworthy. I promise."

"I'll hold you to that," Colin said. "Because I'm never going to give up either. We owe it to him."

There was a strange sound from the console, like someone choking and shrieking at the same time. Colin jumped up and turned around. Badri had put his head down on one of the few parts of the console that wasn't covered in buttons. Linna had her hands over her face.

"Did it—" Colin said, but he couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence. That would make it all too real. Kivrin was right behind him, her hand clutching his shoulder, but she didn't ask either.

Badri lifted his head, and there were tears streaming down his face. "It opened," he said. "It opened."


End file.
